A Democratic Socialist Blog

The System And Mental Illness

Nothing sucks the life out of people more than this system. As rent,mortgages,and expenses go, the quality of life goes down. People are showing up at Social and Medical facilities distressed from economic conditions. This condition is becoming epidemic.

According to the World Health Organization, over 450 million people globally have a mental health issue. In the UK where I live, one in four adults has a diagnosable mental health “condition” during the course of a year. That’s 25 per cent of the population. And yet mental health is something that most of us do not understand. We don’t talk about it. Instead, we just hope it doesn’t happen to us.

Ignoring the fact that everyone has mental health, the label is allocated only to those who are struggling. So good mental health becomes invisible: its causes – which might be to do with emotional, social and material privilege – go uninterrogated. In 1901 Seebohm Rowntree showed poverty was not the fault of the poor. Neoliberal governments since then have all but eradicated that insight.

As inequality increases under late capitalist patriarchy, driving people into poverty, abusive relationships, or otherwise helpless conditions – free market ideology says we deserve it. Nobody who is trying hard enough should need state support.

While often helpful, talking therapies can also act as a process of depoliticizing pain. Broader politics are barred from the cool blue counselling room. In therapy, as with neoliberal ideology, families become the problem; we ignore the ways in which structural oppressions – capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy – create misery. Family becomes harmful within a political context; structures are about individuals.

The study was conducted in 63 countries in four world regions. One of the goals of the study was to see if there was a difference in the impact of unemployment on suicide rates before and after a recession. Using statistical analysis, the researchers deduced that unemployment was the cause of 41,148 suicides in 2007 and 46,131 in 2009. Therefore, they reasoned that the recession in 2008 caused 4,983 additional suicides.

In our neighborhoods, neighbors are having their possessions tossed away by the sheriffs department. People, families are increasing homelessness. People are no longer working 40 hours. Service jobs pay small wages.

Many are getting together to fight for $15, even though we should be making 45 and hour, backed by a livable universal income, and urban renewal that does not gentrify.

the War on Poverty, declared by FDR, revived by LBJ and lately eclipsed by Wars on Drugs and Terror. In this engrossing collection of rigorously researched articles, more than two dozen contributors examine the state of poverty, hammering home two War on Poverty standards: the rich are getting richer while the 37 million living in poverty get nothing, while a third argument bolsters those standbys: the middle class is getting poorer. Elizabeth Warren’s troubling article shows how, in the 2000s, two-income families are far more vulnerable to economic crises than their single-income counterparts, and in fact have less disposable real income (by about $1,500) than single-income families did in the 1970s. Contributors, including Edwards himself, propose some sensible policy solutions, and frequently without raising taxes: raising the minimum wage, creating a Financial Product Safety Commission.

Problems and situations like poverty, income inequality, lack of a fair electoral system, prevailing taxation policies, basic needs and “rights” of people, educational opportunities, homelessness, etc., and proposes possible solutions for them. There are too many myths associated with the poor and the needy. This nation should be for Justice, Fairness and Equality. $72 billion can solve poverty yet, 850+ billion goes to the military, as 50% of the national budget.

In the living rooms and workplaces of real human beings and for the most part letting them tell their own story.

We hope you join us April 18th inTrenton NJ at the State House. 12-6PM: American Labor Party and Fight For $15 NJ. We need to express ourselves.